Unfortunately, the HTC One Does Not Support Qualcomm Quick Charge

Here’s some rather disconcerting news for HTC One owners. While many devices like the Samsung Galaxy SIII, Galaxy S4, Nexus 4 and HTC’s Droid DNA support Qualcomm Quick Charge, the HTC One does not. When you consider the fact that nearly 70 additional Snapdragon powered devices take advantage of Qualcomm Quick Charge it gets a little more difficult to ignore.

Qualcomm Quick Charge, as the name implies, is a rapid charging feature exclusive to Snapdragon devices. According to the company it allows capable devices to charge up to 40% faster than normal. Essentially, a Galaxy S4 will take about 3 hours to charge to 100% instead of the usual 4 hours required for older devices with an equal size battery.

It’s actually part of an integrated solution with Qualcomm Snapdragon devices, which makes use of a unique power management chip. Unfortunately, it’s up to the device manufacturer to activate the necessary support and in the case of the One, HTC did not do that. They cannot just add the support through a software update later either, because it actually has to be supported by the micro-USB charging port.

There’s a reason it has to be supported at a hardware level. Quick Charge functionality allows the PMIC (power management integrated circuit) to accept 10 watts of power via USB thus charging the battery more rapidly.

PR from HTC has confirmed that the Qualcomm Quick Charge feature does not work on the One, so it’s not just speculation at this point. However, it’s unknown why HTC decided not to implement the technology. Perhaps they wanted to make sure the battery life lasted much longer since it’s not removable (I’m specifically referring to the prolonged life of the battery).

It seems odd that HTC would support quick charge in the Droid DNA but not their latest flagship the One. There has to be a particular reason for it, but at this time we know nothing more than you do.

Do you have an HTC One? Have you noticed that charging the device takes considerably longer? Does the charging rate inconvenience you at all?